Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

DRM

Posts

And if Hothead is "destroyed" (it sounds like we're talking about a rebel base or something), or whatever company ends up with the rights to the game completely screws us over or drops the ball...then download a crack.

Hothead isn't EA, Activision, Blizzard, or any other monolithic figure. It feels like we're crucifying the little guy over a series of events that might occur at an indeterminate point in the future, and while they're trying to be nice to us, no less.

Again, DRM isn't a great thing, but Hothead isn't our enemy; keep that in mind before you let loose a bone-chilling screech and snap their body in twain, so that you may drink deeply from their spinal fluids.

So suppose in five years they go bankrupt. That means their assets are seized, so they won't have access to the servers storing the five-year old code (and none of the devs have a copy ready, since, you know, it was five years ago). Also, the devs haven't been paid for six months (because that's usually how things go in the case of bankrupcy).

So now we are to believe that although Hothead doesn't have an office, doesn't have access to their backups, doesn't have a webserver to publish stuff on, and doesn't have any resources to pay their developers what they owe let alone pay them to develop new stuff, they will be able to retrieve the old code, create a no-activation patch (which is probably non-trivial as no-one has looked at the activation code in five years) and release it on a webserver they don't have so all customers have access to it? Don't you think they have other stuff to worry about in such an eventuality?

If the plan is to release a no-activation patch when the activation server goes down, they should make it right now, entrust it to the PA staff, and authorize them to release it when necessary. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it spreads the risks somewhat.

And if Hothead is "destroyed" ... then download a crack.

If the official stance is that paying customers should all download a crack that removes the DRM in order to ensure playability in the future (because if I don't download it now, I won't know if it will be available in ten years) then why the hell is the DRM on there in the first place?!

It feels like we're crucifying the little guy over a series of events that might occur at an indeterminate point in the future, and while they're trying to be nice to us, no less.

It doesn't sit right with me that we, the customers, have to sign away our rights (read the EULA) and must beg Hothead for activations because Hothead doesn't trust us, yet we have to trust Hothead when they make vague promises that "everything will be alright". If they are really commited to ensuring the game will be activitable in five or ten or twenty years, why don't they write this commitment down in the EULA as well? Sure, they said they would "not be dicks" and I do trust that that is their intention, but that isn't worth anything if they don't have a contingency plan that guarantees that a solution will be available when the activation server goes down.

Man, if you're so up-in-arms over this game, how many games can your sense of prophetic doomsaying let you buy?

The game is two days old, and we're already gnawing on our fingernails over the impending bankruptcy of Hothead, of Greenhouse, the collapse of our civilization, the Russians are coming, the Internet is going to disappear, there's a UFO following behind the comet, the world is ending in 2012, oh my god we're all going to die.

There will be some solution or another, I have confidence that the Hothead guys will come through, that they have developed / are developing some contingency for the worst-case.

Don't forget that the DRM is with Greenhouse, which is a partnership between PA and HH... and I can assure that even if HH goes away, which isn't happening, you've got us to take care of the situation.

Man, if you're so up-in-arms over this game, how many games can your sense of prophetic doomsaying let you buy?

The game is two days old, and we're already gnawing on our fingernails over the impending bankruptcy of Hothead, of Greenhouse, the collapse of our civilization, the Russians are coming, the Internet is going to disappear, there's a UFO following behind the comet, the world is ending in 2012, oh my god we're all going to die.

There will be some solution or another, I have confidence that the Hothead guys will come through, that they have developed / are developing some contingency for the worst-case.

But until the worst-case happens...chill out.

Who says we aren't buying it? I'm going to buy it to play this weekend. I just want the DRM removed.

Man, if you're so up-in-arms over this game, how many games can your sense of prophetic doomsaying let you buy?

The game is two days old, and we're already gnawing on our fingernails over the impending bankruptcy of Hothead, of Greenhouse, the collapse of our civilization, the Russians are coming, the Internet is going to disappear, there's a UFO following behind the comet, the world is ending in 2012, oh my god we're all going to die.

There will be some solution or another, I have confidence that the Hothead guys will come through, that they have developed / are developing some contingency for the worst-case.

But until the worst-case happens...chill out.

Who says we aren't buying it? I'm going to buy it to play this weekend. I just want the DRM removed.

Didn't mean to imply any piracy -- 's just, if this level of DRM is offensive, then I'd assume mainstream DRM is flat intolerable.

HotHead could be gone tomorrow. They could get bought, they could lose their co-lo facility, any of a hundred things. I fully believe that they will do their best to make it right, but no one, no one, can predict the future.

And if Hothead is "destroyed" (it sounds like we're talking about a rebel base or something), or whatever company ends up with the rights to the game completely screws us over or drops the ball...then download a crack.

That would be ... (wait for it) ... illegal, as well as unethical. Thanks for helping legitimize the GFCTC pirates.

Hothead isn't EA, Activision, Blizzard, or any other monolithic figure. It feels like we're crucifying the little guy over a series of events that might occur at an indeterminate point in the future, and while they're trying to be nice to us, no less.

Again, DRM isn't a great thing, but Hothead isn't our enemy; keep that in mind before you let loose a bone-chilling screech and snap their body in twain, so that you may drink deeply from their spinal fluids.

If HotHead isn't our enemy, why are they treating us, their paying customers, as their enemy?

It's precisely the little guys who should be avoiding DRM as a competitive advantage over companies like EA.

I appreciate their stance fully and I appreciate their efforts, but a polite insult is still an insult. You guys who are arguing for DRM don't get it. It's not about the inconvenience, or how transparent the copy protection is. It's not about wanting to warez the game - in fact, it's the opposite. It's about the attitude that paying customers are the enemy, and that the stuff the customer paid for can be forever held hostage, precisely because the customers are trying to do the right thing and avoid the ever-present cracked copies. The only people getting screwed by the DRM are the people trying to do the right thing. That makes me angry and sad, especially because I'm one of them.

And there's a problem with that? It's incredibly difficult to prevent piracy, we all know this, but is it wrong for them to do something (not EVERYTHING) they can to prevent piracy?

Nope. What's wrong is to treat their paying customers like thieves in a provably useless effort to stop people who will never pay for the game. You want to fight piracy? Then engage your customers like Stardock does. Make it easier to be legit than to pirate the game.

HotHead representatives (and forgive me, I don't know his/her name) is in this thread saying that if you ask them, they'll be cool about it and let you install the game on more than one rig, unless I read it wrong. They're not sneakily spying, so what's the problem?

We all appreciate how earnest the HotHead folks are, but nothing lasts forever. Some things won't last past tomorrow. When something happens (as it inevitably will), will they be there to make it right? I'm sure the MSN Music people said the same thing and were just as earnest, but you know what? When it came to it, they weren't there, they didn't take care of it, and their customers got screwed, some for hundreds of dollars. No one can predict the future.

I don't mean to come off as hostile, and I got this game for the 360 (based solely on the fact that I prefer to game in my living room, and my PC is having sound issues right now), but I'm still failing to see where this is a problem.

You want to see a problem? Hardware-mod your 360 to play Japanese games. Or better yet, rewind the clock about 18 months and send your 360 in to be replaced for RROD, and watch what happens when you try to access your XBLA games. Yeah. Just because you haven't noticed it doesn't mean you're not being pwned.

Don't forget that the DRM is with Greenhouse, which is a partnership between PA and HH... and I can assure that even if HH goes away, which isn't happening, you've got us to take care of the situation.

And PA ain't goin' anywhere.

Again, I fully appreciate this level of dedication - but I also understand that many things are outside of people's control. Would you be willing to put this in writing, with the code in escrow just in case? Say, a twenty-year guarantee, with separate rights for museums and archives? If you're going to do it, do it right.

Don't forget that the DRM is with Greenhouse, which is a partnership between PA and HH... and I can assure that even if HH goes away, which isn't happening, you've got us to take care of the situation.

And PA ain't goin' anywhere.

Again, I fully appreciate this level of dedication - but I also understand that many things are outside of people's control. Would you be willing to put this in writing, with the code in escrow just in case? Say, a twenty-year guarantee, with separate rights for museums and archives? If you're going to do it, do it right.

If all of this doom happens and we lose Penny-Arcade and the brilliant young developers at HotHead go out of business and it's so bad that no one involved can create a way to allow you to unlock the game should you need to install it again, then yeah, I'm real worried about you in that case.

Don't forget that the DRM is with Greenhouse, which is a partnership between PA and HH... and I can assure that even if HH goes away, which isn't happening, you've got us to take care of the situation.

And PA ain't goin' anywhere.

Again, I fully appreciate this level of dedication - but I also understand that many things are outside of people's control. Would you be willing to put this in writing, with the code in escrow just in case? Say, a twenty-year guarantee, with separate rights for museums and archives? If you're going to do it, do it right.

I hear this a lot in DRM discussions and I don't know what it means. Or to be more specific, I think it's meaningless.

Every retailer, throughout the entire course of human history, has treated customers as potential thieves. Every. Retailer.

This is not something we should be offended by - people who don't know me don't trust me much. And hey, maybe if they did trust me more, I might take advantage. Because the world isn't perfect and neither am I.

So you should change the original quote to:

'Treating the paying customers like potential thieves' to reflect the truth of the matter.

I hear this a lot in DRM discussions and I don't know what it means. Or to be more specific, I think it's meaningless.

Every retailer, throughout the entire course of human history, has treated customers as potential thieves. Every. Retailer.

Well, yes, but they generally stop treating you like a thief once you pay for the item and leave the store. Target isn't tracking me down and making sure I don't make illegal copies of music CDs once I leave the store.

Don't forget that the DRM is with Greenhouse, which is a partnership between PA and HH... and I can assure that even if HH goes away, which isn't happening, you've got us to take care of the situation.

And PA ain't goin' anywhere.

Again, I fully appreciate this level of dedication - but I also understand that many things are outside of people's control. Would you be willing to put this in writing, with the code in escrow just in case? Say, a twenty-year guarantee, with separate rights for museums and archives? If you're going to do it, do it right.

I pinky swear that we will not screw you.

If a man cannot trust Robert Khoo, that man has lost hope in the future. I'm saying this now so that if any of you folks decide to refute Mr. Khoo's honor you will understand that this will make you my enemy from now until the end of all that is HotHead Games/Penny-Arcade Inc.

hotsauce:
Refusing to meet anyone half-way on this is ridiculous. You're acting as if piracy is not an issue and doesn't need to be fought,

The problem is not whenever piracy need to be fought but whenever the solution chosed to fight it is usefull or not, and it's definetly not, if DRM were really efficient against piracy you wouldn't have the record industry starting to remove them.

do you ever buy clothes from stores that put security tags on them? Surely that's treating you like an evil criminal right?

Sorry to say that but that's a pretty stupid comparaison, when you buy clothes the security tag is removed when you leave the shop, you don't have a system that, everytime you want to wear your clothes, force you to contact the shop to ask for their permission, and finally if the shop goes bankrupt you don't have to hope for them to release an hypotetical "patch" to allows you to still wear you clothes

Yeah it is a flawed analogy but if I understand correctly, you only have to contact the shop when you install the software (buy your clothes) not every time you play it (every time you wear your clothes.) And unlike clothes you get three simultaneous installs. Are you going to tell the department store that if you buy that shirt you get three copies, one for home, one to keep at work, and one for the vacation house?

A big difference between clothes and software is that duplicating software is so easy. If there were an "automatic shirt duplicator" which for no cost could clone your clothing, you can bet the fashion designers would try to prevent it too with some copy protection.

A better question to have asked hotsauce is whether or not he has ever bought a DVD, which are all encrypted by CSS. They are treating you like a DVD copying criminal! Still not exactly the same situation, but the algorithms to play a DVD are protected, and you do need to trust in third parties to ensure that DVD playing software or hardware still exist in the future for you to enjoy your investment.

I hear this a lot in DRM discussions and I don't know what it means. Or to be more specific, I think it's meaningless.

Every retailer, throughout the entire course of human history, has treated customers as potential thieves. Every. Retailer.

Well, yes, but they generally stop treating you like a thief once you pay for the item and leave the store. Target isn't tracking me down and making sure I don't make illegal copies of music CDs once I leave the store.

Stupid. Argument. You're comparing using how a brick and mortar store deals with a piece of digital media to how a digital publisher deals with a digital download.

Why do you think that most CDs are harder to rip nowadays than they used to be? Because it's the music media manufacturer that deals with copyright protection, not Target.

Having personally met Khoo at a comic signing, this quote alone is more weight than what I have seen multi-billion dollar companies "promise".

Don't believe me? Take a look at Microsoft's agreement not to sue open source programmers for implementing their schema. Here is a snippit.

Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.

Basically, it says "you can put this in open source software, but if you sell it, you need to buy a license from us, and you can't transfer the license."

Because selling and transferring open source licenses is a right of open source software, by agreeing to this, you give up your rights to make open source software.

Or in other words it says "no, you can't use it in open-source software and we will sue you if you do."

I hear this a lot in DRM discussions and I don't know what it means. Or to be more specific, I think it's meaningless.

That's because you haven't been burned by DRM yet. Imagine that you spent several hundred dollars on a Zune, and then a couple hundred dollars more on MSN Music tracks. In August, the servers that authorize you to play those tracks will go away forever. You just paid several hundred dollars to rent some music for a few months. When you go to play the music you paid for, the music they said would be available to you whenever you wanted it, the software will tell you that you are a thief, and refuse to play the music. In DRM systems, you must prove that you are NOT a thief over ... and over ... and over. The default, implicit assumption is that you are a thief until proven otherwise. No thanks.

Having personally met Khoo at a comic signing, this quote alone is more weight than what I have seen multi-billion dollar companies "promise".

Seriously, I believe and trust Robert, even though I don't know him from Adam. But the agreement is not with Robert; the agreement is with Greenhouse, HotHead Games, and P-A. These are corporate entities that can be bought and sold, and the people in them leave and new people are hired (or not). Things change; they always do. And the code does not know Robert; the code is merciless; Robert's honor is nowhere in those lines. The code will do what it has been programmed to do. Should he add this to the EULA?

Section 5. In the event that the authorization server(s) are taken permanently offline for any reason, including natural catastrophe, bankruptcy, or (worst case) sale of the company to Electronic Arts, I, Robert Khoo, will appear like a ninja out of the mist, sap the night security guard, recover the Program, and upload it free of DRM to the legions of PA fans who are still trying to find the last concept art.

What I mean when I say "put it in writing" is "put it in the EULA". Upload the code (and any patches, etc) to a lawyer who holds it. If the auth servers are permanently disabled, for whatever reason, the lawyers have a plan of action to follow to make sure people keep what they bought. It's possible that this is prohibitively expensive, but I can't see that - and it takes the trustworthy word of one man and puts the weight of the law behind it, so that the "company" can't later decide that they are not bound by Robert's word.

Well, instead of "pinky swearing" that "something" will be done when the activation server goes down, you could also plan ahead and write down your commitments somewhere.

Right now the EULA is full of restrictions on what your customers can do with the game (you do not own it; you are not allowed to give it to someone else; software activation may be denied without a reason; et cetera). Why does it have to be so onesided? Why can't it be like "you agree to x, y and z, and we promise to p, q, and r"?

The only official promise (in the sense that it has been written down in a semi-legal document) has been that we can give you $20 which constitutes a final sale and then at some point in time you may allow us to run the game. That's pretty weak.

I've actually argued the same perspective as our anti-DRM folks on a number of occasions -- indeed, I understand and relate to the sentiment. DRM is the very picture of viewing customers as untrustworthy; not that humans as a group are the pinnacle of trustworthiness.

But when a smaller set of companies (PA / Hothead) come out with a DRM scheme / license flexibility that's simpler and less intrusive than 98% of what you see coming out of the mainstream studios, and you leap on them saying it's not open enough... then you've crossed the line from being passionate about the topic to being generally paranoid.

Or a dick.

You've got Hothead looking at it. You have the word of Robert Motherfucking Khoo, the closest thing to a suit-wearing honcho they have at Penny Arcade.

I understand if you don't trust the big multi-billion dollar gaming megacorps, but these guys are on our side, and have been (in the case of PA) since forever. If we can't trust them, well, then we're adrift in a sea of sharks.

I've actually argued the same perspective as our anti-DRM folks on a number of occasions -- indeed, I understand and relate to the sentiment. DRM is the very picture of viewing customers as untrustworthy; not that humans as a group are the pinnacle of trustworthiness.

But when a smaller set of companies (PA / Hothead) come out with a DRM scheme / license flexibility that's simpler and less intrusive than 98% of what you see coming out of the mainstream studios, and you leap on them saying it's not open enough... then you've crossed the line from being passionate about the topic to being generally paranoid.

Or a dick.

You've got Hothead looking at it. You have the word of Robert Motherfucking Khoo, the closest thing to a suit-wearing honcho they have at Penny Arcade.

I understand if you don't trust the big multi-billion dollar gaming megacorps, but these guys are on our side, and have been (in the case of PA) since forever. If we can't trust them, well, then we're adrift in a sea of sharks.

Yes, the sharks have laser beams attached to their heads.

Captain Eleven on May 2008

0

BelruelLife and death and love and birth andpeace and war on the planet earthRegistered Userregular

I'm going to throw in my two bits here, just for the hell of it. (warning: I like words)

Some people have said that this DRM scheme is good because it's unobtrusive and other people have said that it may be unobtrusive now, but there's no way to guarantee that it will stay that way. In my opinion, obtrusiveness is only part of it.

There's this principle that I and many others subscribe to that says that you should have control over what your own stuff is doing. There are different ways to phrase that, but the idea is that Apple shouldn't be able to dictate what you run on your iPhone, Sony shouldn't be able to install junk on your computer without your knowledge or permission, Microsoft shouldn't be keeping track of what you're watching, etc. You have something that everyone knows is bad, spyware, but it's bad not just because it's collecting personal information, but because your computer is doing something that you don't want it to do without your consent and outside of your control.

You know how they always say that rape isn't about sex, it's about power? This is what they're talking about.

So out of this principle comes the Free Software Foundation and a lot of effort by a lot of people to give you the opportunity to do all of the things that you want to do with your computer, and to do them on your terms.

Now, what about DRM?

In some respects, DRM is the antithesis of this - installing DRMed software means putting restrictions on what you can do with your computer, your stuff, for reasons that are unrelated to you. For many people that's reason enough to avoid it.

However, I'm not against DRM in principle. I don't feel that DRM tied to a given piece of software is taking control away from me as long as I have the choice to install or remove that software, along with it's DRM, and as long as I can still run that software at will (subject to meeting the conditions set by the DRM). In other words, the DRM isn't seizing control as long as I control the DRM. This is true AS LONG AS THE DRM IS LOCAL.

When I have to ask someone else for permission, I no longer have control over what I can do with my stuff. This is unacceptable no matter how trustworthy the person on the other end of the line may be.

Let me clarify my position: obtrusiveness is annoying. I don't like CD checks. I liked it even less when I had to do stupid things like hunting through the instruction manual for arcane symbols, but I could deal with that. Feeling annoyed is one thing, feeling helpless is something else.

I have a solution for those of you that are afraid that they will not be able to play the game 10 years from now.

1: Buy the game, pay the $20.

2: DL the pirated version.

PA and hothead are rewarded for their efforts. You encourage more awesomeness in the future by voting with your wallet.

You get a DRM free game you can play for fifty years. (Or until you can't find hardware that will run it.)

Everybody wins.

If PA and Hothead offered permission for this (i.e.: wrote into the license that, upon purchase of the game the download and use of a pirated copy was legal and permissible), I'd do that in a second.

It'd have to be in writing somewhere. A forum post promising, "We won't sue you." isn't sufficient. If we could get that sort of official acknowledgment though, that seems like it'd be a reasonable solution.

I'd like to pipe in and clarify a few things. I know some people have really strong views on this topic.

1. The limit on the number of installs is solely intended to prevent casual copying of the game and sharing of license codes. If you have more than three machines that you want to play the game on, send an email to support@playgreenhouse.com explaining the situation and we'll up your limit straightaway.

2. There has been a lot of controversy and furor over Mass Effect, Bioshock, and other recent titles that use SecuROM. Some posts on this topic have implied that we're basically doing the same thing as SecuROM, but this is simply untrue. We DO require you to enter a code. We DO perform a one-time online authorization of that code with our servers. But we DON'T install a RootKit on your machine. We DON'T have the game communicate over the internet without disclosing it to you plainly on screen. We DON'T pull tricks that prevent you from running a debugger, running a virtual CD drive, running in a virtual environment, etc, or other surreptitious shenanigans.

3. We did have a couple of early issues with the system where some people couldn't authorize their codes. Specifically, communication with the servers on a high port was being blocked by some firewalls. We released an update today that authorizes your code over port 443 (standard https). We will continue to address issues like this as they come up and improve the way the system works.

When we set out to make the game, we decided to take a very light handed and straightforward approach to DRM. We did however want to protect ourselves from casual copying of the game or sharing of codes. We were not naive that people who were really bent on playing our game without paying would be able to do so. And so we ended up with the system we have, and we think it strikes a good balance.

I've received a lot of mail over the last few days from people thanking us specifically for being so straightforward in our approach. I hope this clarifies things for everyone, and look forward to continuing to hear your feedback.

Who gives a damn if I can play this game 10 years from now? If I can't play it NOW because of some arbitrary restriction I'm placing on myself, I'm kindof missing the point. Sure, you could argue that you're holding out on the purchase in the hopes that they'll remove the DRM, but I wanna say, when was the last time you saw that actually happen with a system like this? Starforce, maybe. Freaky 10-day Spore activation, maybe. This? No, I didn't think so.

Who gives a damn if I can play this game 10 years from now? If I can't play it NOW because of some arbitrary restriction I'm placing on myself, I'm kindof missing the point. Sure, you could argue that you're holding out on the purchase in the hopes that they'll remove the DRM, but I wanna say, when was the last time you saw that actually happen with a system like this? Starforce, maybe. Freaky 10-day Spore activation, maybe. This? No, I didn't think so.

Well, to answer your question, the last time I saw the effectiveness of a DRM boycott was in the case of the music industry. Change is unlikely to happen to an individual game, true, but if enough people stay away from games that jump onto the software activation bandwagon, then eventually the bandwagon will go away.

The sad state of affairs is that for this to happen we need this game and games like it to fail. The drive here is to make an exception for this game, understandable given that everyone here is a PA fan. None of us want this game to fail or, for that matter, games like it - development has been moving away from the PC, thanks to the stricter DRM offered by consoles, and it bothers me. This is the sort of endeavor (indie game development) that I like to support. But a boycott's a boycott, and it doesn't work if you start making exceptions.

So we cross our fingers and we hope that Hothead and PA come around. It may be futile, but there isn't a lot else that we can do here.

I thought that the authorized piracy was a reasonable compromise - since you're required to find the DRM free copy on your own, it does nothing to encourage casual piracy while affording freedom to those of us who care enough for that to matter.